1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to an imaging device and an imaging module, which are typified by complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) image sensors.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the natural world, subjects that have high contrasts exist. For example, for dealing with a subject whose brightness changes from moment to moment, vehicle-mounted imaging devices need to simultaneously image a bright subject and a dark subject (i.e., need to have a high dynamic range). In order to realize a high dynamic range, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 62-108678 (hereinafter referred to as “Patent Document 1”) and Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2008-99073 (hereinafter referred to as “Patent Document 2”) propose methods as described below.
Imaging devices disclosed in Patent Documents 1 and 2 use silicon photodiodes. In Patent Document 1, images for which exposure times (hereinafter may be referred to as “storage times”) differ from each other are combined together to thereby make it possible to obtain a wide dynamic range. This scheme has already been put into practical use. In Patent Document 2”, images acquired from pixel cells that are arranged in one pixel and that have different sensitivities are combined together to increase the dynamic range.